Rocky Balboa

Rocky. Greatest movie ever made.

Ever since I first saw the movie Rocky with my parents in 1975, its been my favorite movie. Not the rocky sequels, and the jokes that its become, but the movie Rocky. I remember driving home with my mother and father from salt lake at 8 years old and basking in the emotion that this movie made me feel. To this day, I still remember the feeling, sitting in back of our station wagon on the way home and how I felt. I felt determined. I got in the fight on the playground the very next day… haha, its funny thinking back on that now.

Sylvester Stallone in my eyes has earned his knocks. He was a starving actor with an idea for a movie back in 1974 and wrote a script for a movie while living out of his car and wondering where he’d eat next. He was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for the script if he walked away and didn’t act in it. Think of that: You’re starving, and offered six figures in a world you’re not sure you can make it in. He didn’t take it. He stuck by his guns, and took less to act in his own creation. The movie was rocky. To me, the movie is a testament to the underdogs of the world and their dreams. He didn’t want to win, he just wanted to go the distance, and he did. You might laugh, but the original rocky brings a tear to my eye every time I watch it. It’s a man making his way through the world. A man with a whole world of fears and doubts and naysayers, yet he gets in the ring and powers it out. Powerful.

So I’m watching Rocky Balboa tonight on Cable. You may think the movie was a joke by a guy trying to cash in on his franchise, but you can’t say Stallone, who is not the brightest bulb in the package doesn’t understand EXACTLY what he’s saying here:

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. Nobody’s gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
– Rocky Balboa

No matter where you are in the world: Take your punch. Take all of them. Then, move foward.